Prone to New

If you haven't figure it out by my twitter or Facebook page, Prone's new home is www.pronetosentimentality.com! Please check it out, I hope you enjoy the new changes!

Love&Luck Always

That Time of Year

Dun dun dun, it's that time of year again. I sent M off to France and now the countdown till my departure is on. 

Believe it or not I have already started packing and am working on a "master packing list" to share with you. With packing means I have already gotten a few lectures from M saying, "they have that in France you don't need to pack it" but there are just some things that remind me of home and "regular life" that I want to bring with. I'm also on the fence with how many photos to bring among other items that will give our apartment a "homey" feeling which I think is important when you live this lifestyle. 

Getting ready to move to France is making me think of the amazing places and great times M and I had last year when I visited, here are a few photos to refresh your memory...

Have a great weekend!

Love&Luck

I Suck at Girls: A Novel Review and so much more!

I already have a feeling this is going to be a "longer than expected" post so take a seat and grab a snack folks.

Okay, for the last few weeks I have been in a reading slump. I raced through 50 Shades of Grey (which I reviewed here) and since then I haven't found anything I wanted to pick up or even felt like taking a look at. Let's go ahead and call this phase "readers block" since I'm pretty sure it happens to me every so often. Anyway, I'm at Target last week looking through their new fiction selection to see if anything catches my eye and I come across Justin Halpern's newest little diddy. If you forgot, I LOVED his Shit My Dad Says (read more about it here) so I literally thought, "He's hilarious, this just might get me out of my readers block" so I purchased it.

Obviously, I LOVED it. Again, Halpern somehow got me literally laughing out loud (to myself mind you) by page 40 and continued to make me laugh all the way up until the last line. What a clown this guy is; no wonder he's hilarious, with a dad like that you really can't run out of material.

What I didn't expect was Halpern to evoke some sentimental and love-y dove-y emotions out of me. Turns out this little beauty isn't about just sucking at attracting the opposite sex but how to get past sucking at relationships and the opposite sex.

By the time shit started getting sentimental, it had me thinking about a topic that I haven't written about that I should have done awhile ago. The topic: moving in with your significant other.

Do you know how most people are full of shit and never tell the truth about situations because they want you to think their lives are perfect? Yeah this is exactly how I feel about moving in with the one you love. IT'S HARD. Why didn't anybody tell me that before M and I moved in together 2 years ago?! I'll tell you why, because nobody wanted to admit that adjusting to someone else's schedule and way of life is hard. Well here it is, that shit is hard. It's even more difficult when one person is completely Type A and neurotic about cleaning and organization and the other just isn't. Figuring out a happy medium to live in a balance with each other is hard, and it's an art if you can figure out how to do it correctly. Although moving in together was challenging, it thankfully didn't take more than a month or so for M and I to figure out how to "marry" our lives under one roof with little to no hiccups.

With that being said, living together should be considered an art because in my opinion it can make or break your bond, relationship, and love if you can't figure out how to mesh well. Apparently, Halpern thinks the same thing; here's the proof from his newest book I Suck at Girls


"When you move in with someone, you can't hide all the weird and annoying things you do, and while sometimes that unveiling ruins the relationship, often it seals the deal. It's like being a meat eater and having your vegetarian friend e-mail you one of those videos that shows you what goes on behind the scenes at a slaughterhouse; if you can make it past that, you'll probably be a meat eater for life."


I think what he said is so true; although difficult and challenging, moving in with your S.O. usually roots your bond much deeper than it was before.

What was really frustrating when M and I were moving in together is that everybody said how great living together is yada yada yada. They never said, "Well you have to adjust to each other's quirks first and then it's amazing". So now I'm saying it for those who haven't lived with or are about to embark on this journey, it's hard. Is it worth it? Of course. I'll tell you this, I wouldn't enter into a marriage without living with someone first because if you can work through those kinks, the beginning of your marriage will be a lot less stressful.

Anyone else have similar experiences? Please share, I love hearing that I'm not the only one ! It also makes me feel a little less crazy.

Recommendation: Must read! Be prepared to laugh your way through each and every page.

Love&Luck

Wedding Weekends

It's that time of year, I only had one weekend off in June due to wedding madness which would explain a great deal for my lack of posting. Let's play catchup via photos...

He cleans up nicely

OOTD for Stacy and John's wedding

The last weekend, I spent in Southern Minnesota for my dear friend's wedding. We met my freshman year and lived together during college as well. I was so honored to a part of her big day and it was so much fun, I actually wanted her to do it all again the next weekend. 

Rehearsal dinner OOTD

Getting glammed

Amazing flowers

Hair for the big day, idea via Pinterest

Post wedding horse and carriage ride

The lovebirds

I only have one more wedding to attend for the season and then I'm scotch free. M is actually leaving in about 2 weeks, seriously, where has summer gone?? I'm actually getting anxious to leave though and have some great posts about prepping Rue for her trip across the big pond which I'll be posting soon!

Love&Luck

Fitness Update

It's been so hard to keep up with posting lately, I'm so sorry! I normally like to blog late at night or while the weather is crummy so I can snug up in bed and write all day. Unfortunately, (yet fortunately) there hasn't been much of that weather lately. It's been Minnesota beautiful all day everyday for the past few weeks so I've been soaking up the rays on walks with Rue or in my parent's pool.

I wanted to do a fitness check-in and let you all know how my clean diet and new workout plan are going.

I have officially joined a gym with classes and all the extra goodies like free weights, cardio machines, personal trainers, etc. etc. And I recruited a workout buddy to join me, my best friend's mom! We are on track taking classes together which always proves to be more fun than working out alone. When I can't make it to classes (which are my favorite) I've been working out at home and exercising with Rue which is good for both of us. Last week I managed a few classes including weight classes like Tone Up and BodyPump as well as a cycling class or two. Does anyone else find working out to be incredibly cathartic? I've cried in yoga before during certain poses but I was having a rough day on Friday and found myself letting the tears run during my cycling class. Thank goodness the lights were off but there's just something about pushing yourself physically that helps you let out the emotions. Good stuff all around.

My diet has also been going really well and I've allowed my self 1 cheat day a week in moderation which is helping an cravings. It's also a good way to figure out that you don't really "need" something when you're craving it in the moment. If you tell yourself you'll just have it on your cheat day and you no longer crave it on the cheat day, it's just a win win. You really didn't need it and you saved yourself the guilt of giving in.

I've also been steaming and grilling lots of veggies which I find much tastier and I'm making salmon a few times a week which is a nice change from chicken. I've been incorporating a lot more water and have been thinking about buying a few gallons and giving myself the "gallon a day" challenge to see how I can do. Smoothies have also been a nice go-to for me when I'm too lazy to make an omelette, I just throw all the fruits and veggies into the blender and I'm good to go.

I'm trying to do some serious research about which kind of protein powder to buy and am more convinced now than ever that I need to incorporate it into my fitness plan. MuffinTop-Less has been giving good recommendations and references a few good websites that will help you if you're trying to decide which protein you should be taking.

I know it's summer time so I'm sure you're all trying to keep up on looking good for this bikini weather so good luck on sticking to your goals and plans!

Love&Luck

Novel Review: 50 Shades of Grey

Okay I have been meaning to write a little something about this well known series and haven't gotten around to it. This will be brief but hopefully helpful.

About two months ago I had caught wind of this new series that was supposed to be a pretty saucy new book series revolving around a BDSM relationship (bondage, dominant, sadism, masochism). Well this is news because I'm pretty sure I've never read a book with a BDSM relationship or heard of one on the best sellers lists worldwide. So of course I had to see what all the hype was about and probably ended up reading all three books in the series within two weeks. Someone asked me yesterday, "How did the book make you feel?" and my answer was, "Hot and bothered". Simply put.

Here is one thing I will say, E.L. James did not in any way write the books well. What she was remarkable at was capturing attention and keeping the suspense building throughout the entire series. She does an excellent job getting your attention in the first novel by introducing us to the BDSM world and therefore making us read further to see what it's really about. Then she eloquently turns the series into a relationship centered series rather than a sex-centered series. Whether the relationship is strictly BDSM throughout, only you can find out by reading.

I will warn you, if you can get through the first book without cringing too frequently at the use of "my inner goddess" among other phrases that are disturbingly overused, you will enjoy the series and maybe heat-up your sex life.

Like I said, I wanted to keep the review short and sweet and not give up too much. Although poorly written, I couldn't put the book down because I had to know what was going to happen next. James did a good job by throwing in a few right hooks that you wouldn't necessarily expect which kept things fresh as well.

Enjoy! Let me know if you read them and please tell me what you thought!

Love&Luck

Eating Clean

It's official, I'm completely unmotivated to work out almost 100% of the time lately. The worst part is, I would like to change a few things and yet here I am, not doing a thing about it. Then I was thinking...they say your body is 75% diet and 25% exercise so if I want to change my body, why not start in the kitchen? So I am. 

I love to cook and have been slacking in that department ever since, well, M and I haven't lived together. When we lived together he was obviously hungry and didn't just want to eat cereal, frozen pizzas, etc. so I had to experiment with recipes and try new things all the time. That was great because I didn't have a job and I just spent a lot of my time cooking and trying new things in the kitchen. Well since we haven't lived together for almost a year, the cooking has really taken a backseat. 

Now that I've decided to eat clean and make a serious change to what I put into my body, the kitchen is back in action. A few things that have helped guide me on my journey to clean eating would be:

- My dear friend Sara at PudgytoPaleo is a regular gal turned Paleo-passionate hustler who provides me with lists of can and cannot eats. She also creates challenges at her local CrossFit center that anyone from anywhere can participate in. Check out her website for recipes and encouragement and if you would like a personalized meal plan, send her an e-mail and she would be happy to create one for you at a small fee (this is her job!). 

Here is a sample of her work...

- I LOVE checking out Savannah's blog at Muffin Top-Less. She posts recipes, workouts, encouraging quotes and provides plenty of motivation through her own photos. The great thing about her is that she provides pictures of her before and after and seems so relatable making me that much more motivated. 

Today I made this salmon recipe by Giada DeLaurentis (via Food Network) without the salsa verde and this recipe that I have from Pinterest. I've been making veggie fries with almost every meal if I don't have anything planned because they are so easy and quick. I've been trying to eat a lot more fish which is an adventure in itself because I haven't really cooked much fish. 

I've also cut out alcohol because if I'm going to be serious about this, I better go balls to the wall and be committed so if I really want a cocktail I drink Bethenny Frankel's Skinnygirl cocktails because they're low in calories and have a decent alcohol content (in my opinion). 

What do you use for motivation? Please share, I'd love to know!

Love&Luck